Dragon's Breath and Poison Souls
by paigenumber
Summary: Lord Voldemort is gaining power and the world is changing, for the better is some opinions and for the worse for others. A young healer travels to Romania to work with dragons, but are her plans more than pure or is it a misunderstanding? They say dragon's breath kills, but does it? Can dragon's breath burn away a poisoned soul or is it's soul destined to die too?
1. Chapter 1 New Beginnings Or is it?

**Chapter One~**

**New Beginnings, or is it?**

* * *

Burning flesh is a smell you tend to become accustomed to when you work on a dragon reserve is the first thing her brother had told her about his work when she'd told him about her new position. He'd said it as casually as if he was breathing while another career escorted Emilia Bryne towards the clinic, where the nineteen-year-old healer would be working and living since the clinic had an apartment of sorts attached to it.

That factor of the place was nothing new to Emilia. It was common for healers to live in clinics like these whey worked on a site. The whole arrangement made it a whole lot easier for the healer to care for patients in critical condition.

In the main area of the clinic, there were about eight beds along each side of the tent. Beside each bed was a side table with a ceramic white pitcher, a glass and a pair of stock standard blue pajamas on a smooth wooden tray. Next to that was a pile of two to three books.

Off to the side of the room was a little office with clear glass walls and shelves all along one wall, filled with potions and bandages.

There was even a shelf dedicated to surgical tools, just in case of emergencies, and beneficial herbs.

To Emilia, she'd never been on a site with such a well stocked and set out clinic like this one and it nearly made her jump for joy at the thought of working in a place like this.

Everything about it made the girl ecstatic and she hadn't even seen the part where she'd be living!

A pair of large, wooden double doors separated the clinic from her apartment.

The apartment had a large sitting room crammed with comfortable, brown leather armchairs all arranged around a small coffee table with coasters and books organized on the polished surface.

Next to the small kitchenette was a large bookcase, crammed full of books and papers.  
In Emilia's opinion, the person who'd lived there before her must've been a massive book worm because books basically covered every available surface and when she was led through a lighter set of double doors, this time the door was made from an outline of aged wood with light blue fabric with a swirling pattern, she couldn't help but gasp at the actual beauty of the room.

The bed, which was positioned in the center of the room, against the center wall, was an old fashioned four-poster with white curtains hanging around it to serve the owner of the bed even more privacy.

About two to three inches from the bed was a side table with a vase of flowers on it and the shutters were open, letting a gentle breeze into the small room.

Directly across from the window was a wooden chest of drawers with a vintage feel as well as a vanity.

Shelves lined all free spaces along the wall, all filled with books, and the girl, who'd always had a love of writing couldn't help but squeal as she took in the desk. It was as simple as a desk could be, just a table and a chair, with a box for her to put her spare parchment in and another for her spare inkpots and quills, but the small space seemed like heaven to the girl.

That was the thing Emilia loved most about the room.

The books.

They basically covered every surface and it made her heart leap happily just as the thought of being able to read all those well loved, aged novels.

Branching off into another room was a small bathroom with a bathtub, shower and a sink connected to a marble bench top with glass cabinets.

Shelves lined the wall above the bath, covered with a variety of bath salts, soaps and bubble baths. It seemed as if the person who ran the reserve had gone above and beyond to impress the young girl who would've just been happy enough with a clean surface and a wand to heal people.

Instead, she felt like a princess and it was unusual for her to feel so pampered.

When she finally wandered back out to the clinic, her brother and her guide, Willow were waiting there, looking insufferably smug.

Emilia couldn't help looking at them both, a shy smile on her face as she tried to think of how to talk to them.

More Willow.

She'd always been close with her older brother.

"Is this all for me? Its…just…wow. So much for just me." She finally said, frowning at how such a usually articulate person could struggle with her words as she just had.

"All for you, Miss Bryne." Willow said, her smile as bright and helpful as the person wielding it.

Everything seemed so much and all Emilia could do without freaking out was rushing off to make everyone a cup of tea.

* * *

After a long wait where she'd spent about ten minutes opening and closing cupboards, she finally had made three cups of tea, which she placed on the coaster on the coffee table.

"Now, there are some matters at hand." Willow said, having a sip of her tea as she reclined in the leather chairs.

They were as comfortable and warm as Emilia had thought.

"A condition of the job here is that you need to train as a handler. Not full on training, just basic. You're a healer here for two species, is that correct?"

Emilia nodded quickly, her eyes wide as she struggled to grasp the concept being thrown to her.

She had to deal with dragons.

Sure, she'd trained to be able to heal them and humans but she never thought she'd have to be able to handle them.

Finally, she gasped out, "Yes." As Willow seemed to be waiting for an answer from the girl.

"Good, so we have a trainer for you. He's from England, I believe, which is pretty close to where you came from, Ireland, right?"

A frown settled on her face as she looked at Willow, confusion etched onto the lines of her face.

"How did you…?"

Her brother broke in, a rather large smirk on his face. "Your accent. Everything you say has that tiny Irish tint that Lex and I never had. You learned to talk too late."

Her brother looked up as another man walked into the room, both of them warmly greeting each other.

"Jonathan!"

"Weasley!"

Then they man hugged.

Emilia had never seen the point of man hugging or why they even called it man hugging. Maybe they didn't and she had just always thought that.

Her mind went off on some internal babble as she fiddled with a strand of her chestnut brown hair, a thoughtful expression on her face.

She jumped when a face she didn't know came into her line of sight, a grin on their freckled face as they held their hand out to her.

"Hey, I'm Charlie. It's good to meet the raven's little sister."

He talked like he'd known her her whole life; he even held his body like that.

Emilia thought he'd be around her brother's age, so about twenty-four. The difference between the two of them made her laugh.

Jonathan was long, lanky and dark haired and eyed whereas Charlie was of moderate height, about six foot. Freckles covered his face and blue eyes that twinkled glimmered back at her with amusement as he ran a hand through his orange hair.

"You are Emilia, right? I didn't just introduce myself to a complete stranger and make an absolute fool of myself?" He asked, grinning back as he saw her crack a genuine smile.

"No, I'm Emilia. It's nice to meet you too."

Overly formal.

Ouch.

You could practically see how the formal greeting confused him, made it seem to him like she was freezing him out and in a way she was.

She was nineteen and she didn't need a teacher, or a babysitter.

Emilia Bryne knew that going to a dragon reserve had been a mistake, but she'd had no choice, the voices in her head practically screamed as she took in all the people she'd have to hurt to do what was best for herself.

Was it all worth it to let the world burn?


	2. Chapter 2 Dragon Memory

**_Chapter Two; Dragon memory. _**

* * *

_You know what you have to do. Do not disappoint me. _

Were the words running through her mind, over and over as Emilia paced the small apartment, the parchment crumbled up in her hand as she tried desperately to let everything go away.

The night had bled into the day, yet she couldn't force herself to leave the tent so that she could join all the other people living on the reserve in the dining room. Emilia just couldn't face all those kind faces.

They'd welcomed her in, like she had always been one of their own and had given her a home, a place to work and an income for god sake and what was she going to do?

She was going too…Emilia couldn't think about that and threw the parchment into the fire, watching with satisfaction all over her face as the hungry embers ripped over and tore at the paper until it was nothing more than ash amongst the bright flames.

It was funny, because all through school, Emilia and her friends had always boasted that if the deal Emilia had made was offered to them, they'd deny it. That all seemed like a thousand years ago, filled with young, stupid and arrogant school girl giggles.

Saying no had been the hell of a lot harder than the girl would care to admit as she ran her hands through her dark hair in frustration, yanking at the strands as she thought an internal war filled with images and voices that were not from her own mind's eye.

The images and voices continued, getting more dominant and loud as she struggled to reign it back in, to gain some morsel of control. But she couldn't break away. It was physically exhausting and she'd never been that good at Occlumency. Her body felt cold, so cold, despite the fact that she was growing closer and closer to the hungry flames coming from the fireplace.

Her attention was jerked back into the present as strong, calloused hands seized her elbows and yanked her away from the flames, snapping the thoughts away the second she'd come in contact with another human.

Blue eyes met brown, worry buried to the core as her mind tried to process everything. Who had grabbed her. Who was now talking to her and looking at her as if he expected an answer.

Charlie Weasley.

Her _mentor._

"You right there? I've never seen a girl wrestle with herself. It was quite eye opening as to why there is _usually _more than one person engaged in the fighting."

She tried not to laugh as she took a step away from him and ran yet another hand through her hair, trying to figure out how to proceed.

"Just, freaking out, you know. New place, new environment." Emilia finally said, mentally cursing herself about how absolutely pathetic she was. Here was a guy her brother's age, her mentor, for god's sake and she was just babbling on about how she was freaking out.

He probably thought she was weak and pathetic.

If she wasn't here, she'd probably get a punch across the jaw for even voicing the opinion, if she was lucky.

A punch across the jaw wasn't as bad as the…the…

"It's fine. We've all been there, kid. Don't worry." Charlie said, giving her his biggest, warmest smile that didn't seem forced in the least.

He must've had good practice, was all Emilia could think as she remembered why he was there.

Until any patients were admitted to the clinic, she'd be out in the field training with Charlie.

Which was exactly why he was in her tent in the morning while she was still in her pajam-

Emilia looked down, hazel eyes widening as she looked from her cow patterned pajama pants to Charlie's amused face.  
"Took you long enough."  
He called after her in that teasing voice of his as she bolted into her bedroom, slamming the door closed as soon as she was over the threshold.

Note to self, lock door.

But it had been locked…which probably meant she'd have to Charlie-proof her door. Who would've thought she'd have even had to think about that her first official day on the reserve.

"Help yourself to some tea!" Emilia called out as she yanked on a pair of jeans, a plain t-shirt and heavy-duty boots that she'd nicked off her brother a while back. If she was going into dangerous territory, she definitely was not wearing her good boots.

When she emerged, Charlie had a cup of tea on the table, with a whole lot of notes on dragons spread out across the table, his forehead furrowed as he scribbled on a piece of parchment.

"Raven! Brilliant! Come here, come here! We'll be training here today, well for most of it, I'm afraid. You need to learn your dragons before we let you anywhere near them."  
A small sigh of relief escaped Emilia as she sat at the table, her legs crossed underneath her as she accepted the tea Charlie nudged her way.  
On about every piece of the paper was a drawing of a different dragon; all it's body parts labeled while underneath that was instructions, habitats and things like that.

"You want me to remember all that? And there's doubles." Of course the bookworm had picked up the doubles within seconds but Charlie just lightly smacked her hands away and smirked at her.

"You're going to play memory."

Memory.

"You. Have. Got. To. Be. Kidding. Me." Emilia said slowly, looking up at her mentor with a slightly disgusted expression as he magically made all the papers turn themselves over and shuffle into new, unknown positions.

"Nope. Now do it."

So, most of the day was spent playing dragon memory while Emilia recited multiple things. Uses for their blood, scales, endangered lists and numbers of dragons and why they were slowly depleting.

Despite his teasing, lighthearted nature, Charlie Weasley was definitely strict when it came to handling his dragons. But throughout the whole game they laughed, teased and Emilia felt as if she was a seventh year again. All carefree and optimistic.

The final game was the most important, yet another one of memory. Charlie stood behind Emilia, his fingers lightly resting on her shoulders as she played along.

The objective was to pick up the picture of the dragon, recite basically all there was to know about it and then to find its matching pair.

So, in short, a long, tiresome game.

His fingers would occasionally massage her shoulders, as it was now. Both of them were stressed and the pressure was on. If she didn't get a passing mark for this game, yes, he happened to be _grading _her on the piece of shit; both of them would be stuck in doors for the next two months as they did the _traditional _course.

None of them wanted that.  
For different reasons, Emilia supposed.

Already spending a lot of time with the bloke made her feel beyond guilty and learning about all the dragons…that just made what she would have to do that much more difficult.

* * *

After about an hour, ten minutes of which it took Charlie to calculate the scores he slowly stood up and looked at her, his face extremely serious.

"Emilia Bryne…you've…' He paused, considering. Then a grin split across his face and the young, carefree Emilia was back as she had been for most of the game, and she'd jumped into his arms with a yelled, "YIPPE! I did it! I did it!"

Charlie just laughed and spun his student around, replying back just as happily. "You did it! You did it!", glad that she'd passed and that now that the bookwork was done, he could really get down to impressing her.


End file.
